Cold Fusion/Nuclear Power

When I was beginning college I had the choice of writing a 10 page research paper on any debatable thing I wished. I chose to write a pro-nuclear power piece. I was nearly finished when I came upon a gigantic obstacle I couldn't surpass. What on earth could be done with the waste?

I trashed the idea and wrote an eloquent 10 page piece of garbage on philosophy instead. I got an A on the 10 pages of opinionated nonsense and continued down the academic path toward the achievement of wearing a stupid black square hat.

Now, being a bit further down that path, I have come to find that oxygen can be turned into gold and nuclear waste can indeed be turned into something else by merely swapping out an electron or two here or there.

(If this is absolute nonsense I apologize on behalf of my chemistry teacher . . . he is from Kentucky.)

From what I understand the aforementioned is extremely expensive to do.

Well, why not make it inexpensive?

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If we as a planet are facing an energy crisis why isn't Nuclear power the solution?

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Also, I am extremely interested in constructing a jet pack that is cold fusion powered. If anyone has significant (or otherwise) information on how I would go about this please post it here.

Thank you all.

Originally posted by nihilismor
When I was beginning college I had the choice of writing a 10 page research paper on any debatable thing I wished. I chose to write a pro-nuclear power piece. I was nearly finished when I came upon a gigantic obstacle I couldn't surpass. What on earth could be done with the waste?

I trashed the idea and wrote an eloquent 10 page piece of garbage on ...[text shortened]... r otherwise) information on how I would go about this please post it here.

Thank you all.

I hate to break it to you but the only results from cold fusion have been some VERY slightly hotter electrodes than could supposedly be explained by chemical reactions. So the amount of power they were talking about was probably a watt or two, even if it WAS from cold fusion. Thats only about 5 orders of magnitude too low to help you with your backpack. Better redesign it with a kerosene burner instead.
What about a one man hot air ballon backpack?

Originally posted by nihilismor
When I was beginning college I had the choice of writing a 10 page research paper on any debatable thing I wished. I chose to write a pro-nuclear power piece. I was nearly finished when I came upon a gigantic obstacle I couldn't surpass. What on earth could be done with the waste?

I trashed the idea and wrote an eloquent 10 page piece of garbage on ...[text shortened]... r otherwise) information on how I would go about this please post it here.

Thank you all.

…nuclear waste can indeed be turned into something else by merely swapping out an electron or two here or there….

I hate to spoil your optimism here but to turn nuclear waste into non-radioactive waste you have to change radioactive chemical elements into non-radioactive chemical elements and, to do that, you cannot do that just by only “merely swapping out an electron or two here or there” because swapping around electrons will not do it because what you need to do is either add or remove some of the protons or neutrons from the nucleus of the atoms and in a controlled way -a very tricky process!

I hate to spoil your idea but the following is what I said in another thread but slightly adapted for here:

“We can rule nuclear power as a reasonable alternative because it is unsustainable and barely economical and the more nuclear power stations we have running, the faster we will use up the worlds supply of uranium nuclear fuel and then we can’t have any more fission nuclear power anyway. This is true even with ‘breeder reactors’ that make more nuclear fuel than they consume because, as anyone like myself that has studied some nuclear physics at university would tell you, nuclear fission is fundamentally a ‘one-way’ process and eventually we will end up with less and less useful nuclear fuel.

We may one day use nuclear fusion (as opposed to nuclear fission) but research into that is just too slow and a useful nuclear fusion power station would be at least many decades away if not many centuries way, -far too late to help us to prevent a global energy crises. “

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…nuclear waste can indeed be turned into something else by merely swapping out an electron or two here or there….

I hate to spoil your optimism here but to turn nuclear waste into non-radioactive waste you have to change radioactive chemical elements into non-radioactive chemical elements and, to do that, you cannot do that just by only “me ...[text shortened]... es away if not many centuries way, -far too late to help us to prevent a global energy crises. “[/b]

I'm not so pessimistic as you are.

There is a way of making strongly radioactive elements into another less radioactive elements. The term is transmutation. Bombard the element with neutrons or protons and something will happen. (I don't know all the details.)

I'm not so pessimistic about fusion either. There are fusion reactors functioning already, just not economic ones yet. I don't think we need to wait centuries, not even decades. Cold fusion we have to wait a while...

We use hydrogene fusion already. The sun is a working reactor, free of charge.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
I'm not so pessimistic as you are.

There is a way of making strongly radioactive elements into another less radioactive elements. The term is transmutation. Bombard the element with neutrons or protons and something will happen. (I don't know all the details.)

I'm not so pessimistic about fusion either. There are fusion reactors functioning already, a while...

We use hydrogene fusion already. The sun is a working reactor, free of charge.

…There is a way of making strongly radioactive elements into another less radioactive elements. The term is transmutation. Bombard the element with neutrons or protons and something will happen….

I have some bad news; it takes an awful lot of energy to accelerate protons to the necessary velocities to cause transmutation. As for neutrons, they normally come from radioactive decay so that you would rely on adding yet more radioactive material just to cause the transmutation. Also, in both cases, the transmutation is very difficult to “control” meaning, if you just bombard a radioactive chemical element with neutrons or protons any-old-how, typically you end up just converting it into several other types of chemical elements some of which are usually still radioactive! This is why it is very difficult to finely control the process of transmutation which is one reason why nuclear reactors produce so much radioactive waste.

…There are fusion reactors functioning already, just not economic ones yet.….

Yes, and the reason why they aren’t economical is because they consume vastly more energy just to make the fusion reaction happen than the energy that is produced from that fusion reaction !

… I don't think we need to wait centuries, not even decades. ….

I am afraid many supporters of fusion reactors have been saying the same thing for decades now.

…We use hydrogen fusion already. The sun is a working reactor, free of charge.….

I agree, and I am all for solar energy. However, the core of the sun where hydrogen fusion occurs has unimaginable pressures and temperatures that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to simulate in the lab.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…There is a way of making strongly radioactive elements into another less radioactive elements. The term is transmutation. Bombard the element with neutrons or protons and something will happen….

I have some bad news; it takes an awful lot of energy to accelerate protons to the necessary velocities to cause transmutation. As for neutrons, t es and temperatures that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to simulate in the lab.[/b]

Well, I'm still optimistic.

Research is going about transmutations. Yes, it costs energy, but with nuclear plants we have energy.

We are freshmen in nuclear fission. It would be fantastic if we succeded right away in full scale. The research reactors are doing pretty well so far, but to make them economic, it takes some more time.

I can't look into the future, neither can anyone else, but the time is coming when the first economic fusion reactor will start. Bye bye uranium, bye bye radioactive waste.

My remark about the sun was somewhat humourus. We are using a natural fusion source already. And life has been using it for billion of years. Bringing the whole sun into a lab is of course impossible 😵

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…There is a way of making strongly radioactive elements into another less radioactive elements. The term is transmutation. Bombard the element with neutrons or protons and something will happen….

I have some bad news; it takes an awful lot of energy to accelerate protons to the necessary velocities to cause transmutation. As for neutrons, t es and temperatures that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to simulate in the lab.[/b]

"Yes, and the reason why they aren’t economical is because they consume vastly more energy just to make the fusion reaction happen than the energy that is produced from that fusion reaction ! "

This is not true. JET in England has achieved positive energy production fom fusion (using a magnetically contained plasma method - not cold fusion). But it was only achieved for a very short time (under a second or a few seconds - that order of magnitude I think)

Also, the new facility under construction in France (ITER - it's Latin for "The way" or "the truth" or something like that) is designed to build on the success of JET and produce longer periods of positive energy production and also much more power.

I agree with you entirly that Fission is not the way forward, lack of fuel, waste etc make it not a viable option. But Fussion is the way forward. The Lithium in an average laptop battery and the heavy water extracted from about a bath full of water are enougth nuclear fusion fuel to provide energy for the average European person for about 20 years (these statistics are very approximate - but give an idea of the magnetudes involved.)

Put another way, 1kg of nuclear fussion fuel (tritium and deuterium) have the potential to provide the same amount of energy as litrally MILLIONS of kg of fossil fuels (I forget the exact comparison).

The generation of fusion plants after ITER are expected to be commercially viable. Fussion is within reach in out lifetime or 100 years are most if proper investment is made.

If there was a Manhattan Project stlye drive to get Fusion the same way as there was to get Fission we would easily have working Fusion power plants withing the next 20-50 years.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…There is a way of making strongly radioactive elements into another less radioactive elements. The term is transmutation. Bombard the element with neutrons or protons and something will happen….

I have some bad news; it takes an awful lot of energy to accelerate protons to the necessary velocities to cause transmutation. As for neutrons, t ...[text shortened]... es and temperatures that would be extremely difficult if not impossible to simulate in the lab.[/b]

Does anyone know much about the ITER project (www.iter.org)?

I always understood that we did not have the science/technology to do fusion such that the energy out is greater than the energy in (Q>1) but this project appears to imply that they are building a plant which they expect to acheive Q>5! I should note that I have not looked through the whole site and there may be caveats in the details somewhere.

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by MattP
"Yes, and the reason why they aren’t economical is because they consume vastly more energy just to make the fusion reaction happen than the energy that is produced from that fusion reaction ! "

This is not true. JET in England has achieved positive energy production fom fusion (using a magnetically contained plasma method - not cold fusion). But it et Fission we would easily have working Fusion power plants withing the next 20-50 years.

I hope you are right about all of that -this is an example when I would be glad to be proven completely wrong!

...If there was a Manhattan Project style drive to get fusion the same way as there was to get fission we would easily have working fusion power plants withing the next 20-50 years.

But, I fear even just 20 years time might be too late to prevent a disastrous world-wide energy/fuel and food crises. If it is going to take at least 20 years, then, personally, I think we should shelve research into it in order to divert as much money, time, and resources into research into those renewables that have the potential of being made much more economically viable within, say, 4 years (or as soon as possible), if only there was the real willpower and a real sense of urgency with the world waking up to the fact that we urgently need alternatives NOW.

I only hope that, somehow, some kind of global wakeup call, without doing any real lasting damage, makes reality slap everybody hard on the face so that everybody at last wakes up to the seriousness of reality and makes them as scared as I am. If everybody is made as scared as I am, then I can give an absolute cast-iron guarantee that we will have all the answers and renewables fully developed and implemented within 4 years and then there will definitely be no global crises.

Tidal and wave energy is perhaps the most sensible option for renewable sources.

Unlink wind/solar, tides are extreemly predictable. Tides always move a HUGE quantity of water, so there is the potential to extract massive amounts of energy.

However, as with all methods of extracting energy from the environment there are significant downsides. What effects will a tidal barrage an array of sea-bed tide turbines have on the environment? I dont know, but it will probably be significant.

Another way forward is to reduce total energy use. Use less power by having more efficient devices or by simply using less technology. We (the human race) are extreemly wasteful! Extreemly wasteful undeed! We have become so lazy we use cars for even short journeys, we dont do any sort of manual labour if we can avoid it and we throw things away before they break just because new models are available. All new technology should be designed with efficiency and energy use in mind - just look at the ridiculas cars that are being designed at the moment that have less then 10MPG - it is simply stupid to be designing such cars in the present situation. And there are similar problems with many new things.

Anyway, end of rant hehe. I suppose my point is that aswell as developing better ways to harness energy we should also reduce the amount we actually need.

Originally posted by MattP
Tidal and wave energy is perhaps the most sensible option for renewable sources.

Unlink wind/solar, tides are extreemly predictable. Tides always move a HUGE quantity of water, so there is the potential to extract massive amounts of energy.

However, as with all methods of extracting energy from the environment there are significant downsides. What effe ...[text shortened]... l as developing better ways to harness energy we should also reduce the amount we actually need.

I think you make some good points.

…What effects will a tidal barrage an array of sea-bed tide turbines have on the environment? I don’t know, but it will probably be significant….

I don’t really know for sure but I would guess it probably would not be significant for two reasons:

1, just think about all those ship propellers on all those ships and boats that are constantly churning up the sea water across the worlds ocean right now! And yet I haven’t heard of any significant environmental concerns about that so I am guessing here that the damage done by constantly churning up the sea water is insignificant.

2, I presume those tide turbines would be on the sea bed and that would mean that they would probably be sufficiently deep that they will not disturbed the plankton zone above and so it would have minimal effect on sea life. Remember, most of the sea life is in just the upper layer of sea water which is well lit up by sunlight.

Originally posted by Penguin
Does anyone know much about the ITER project (www.iter.org)?

I always understood that we did not have the science/technology to do fusion such that the energy out is greater than the energy in (Q>1) but this project appears to imply that they are building a plant which they expect to acheive Q>5! I should note that I have not looked through the whole site and there may be caveats in the details somewhere.

--- Penguin.

Yes, that is the goal. They have made big strides in understanding plasma confinement, the latest being a sheer effect magnetic field inside the main field that makes the plasma take a big right turn and two magnetic field kind of counter-rotating around each other which seems to at least partially quell the micro turbulence of the plasma which sucks energy out of the system. That said, a Q of 5 is nice but not the big cahoona. They need a Q of at least 20 to make it viable. With 5 you have to pump in 100 megawatts to get out 500 megawatts, which may be the area of energy they are using, maybe an over-estimate but something like that. To be economically viable they need to pump in 50 megawatts and get out a gigawatt, a much better state of affairs for power generation financial consideration. That would be the goal for the beast to follow ITER.
I have been following the ITER and it's ups and downs, the US saying yes, then no, then partial yes, realizing they would be left out in the dark when it starts looking viable and be buying licenses and hardware from the Europeans and Japanese. I think we should have our OWN ITER with not 5 begabucks but 100 bil. We sent 4 times that to Iraq. It seems a lot safer an investment to me. That money would not go down the drain, it would pay for a significant workforce and hundreds of companies would make a lot of money on such a project so we would be feeding ourselves with that money. Our present administration I guess wants us to run the entire world out of oil before they start thinking, OH, maybe we better invest in fusion (they say that in the year 2040......)

The title of this thread is "Cold Fusion/Nuclear Power".

When we talk about "cold fusion" we often think about the experiment from 1989 where tritium is catalyzed with palladium at room temp and pressure to create He4. No other explanation than cold fusion could explain this result. This result is widely disputed.

But a lesser known "cold fusion" is the experiemnt using myons as a catalyst. In http://www.schlauweb.de/Kalte_Kernfusion I can read:

"Myonen-Katalysierte Fusion
Der Begriff "kalte Fusion" wurde 1948 von Andrei Sacharow für einen Vorschlag geprägt, die Kernverschmelzung durch die Verwendung von Myonen zu erleichtern. Dabei wird das Elektronenwelle eines Tritium-Atoms durch ein Myon ersetzt. Zwecks der krass geringeren Orbitalgröße kann das Tritiumatom damit nahe hinreichend an ein Deuteriumatom gelangen um mit ihm zu fusionieren. Das Myon wird anschließend wiederum freigesetzt und kann übrige Fusionen einleiten. Es arbeitet daher ähnlich wie ein chemischer Katalysator.

Die kurze Lebensddauer des Myons von etwa 2,2 µs begrenzt die Zahl der von einem Myon katalysierten Fusionsreaktionen. Pro eingesetztem Myon wurden in entsprechenden Experimenten maximal 2 MeV durch die Kernreaktion frei gesetzt. Für die Fertigung der Myonen in Teilchenbeschleunigern werden über 3 MeV pro Myon benötigt. Daher besteht anti der Hoffnung von A. Sacharow keine Aussicht, auf dieser Basis einen Fusionsreaktor zur Energieerzeugung zu bauen."

Sounds promising, in my opinion. The only problem is that the myon is unstable so you have to produce a steady flow of myons into the reaction. This production takes energy. If you can use the myon in a sufficiently enough number of reactoins, then you can generate more energy than have to be input inthe system.

This is called "cold fusuion", even if the temp is about 750 centigrades. It is far below the millions of centigrades in an tokamak reactor.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
The title of this thread is "Cold Fusion/Nuclear Power".

When we talk about "cold fusion" we often think about the experiment from 1989 where tritium is catalyzed with palladium at room temp and pressure to create He4. No other explanation than cold fusion could explain this result. This result is widely disputed.

But a lesser known "cold fusion" i ...[text shortened]... 750 centigrades. It is far below the millions of centigrades in an tokamak reactor.

You mean 'Muons'?
When you say Myons, I keep thinking of Inca's🙂

Originally posted by sonhouse
You mean 'Muons'?
When you say Myons, I keep thinking of Inca's🙂

Myons or perhaps Mayans? 🙂

Perhaps it's Muons I mean.